The duel between Kathmandu’s 34-year-old mayor Balendra Shaha (popularly called Balen), a structural engineer, reputed rapper and political novice, and 72-year-old Khagda Prasad Sharma Oli, a high school dropout, two-time prime minister, political veteran and chairperson of the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) is a caricature of contemporary Nepali politics marred by the conflict between the old and the young. The duel has attracted numerous newspaper articles, set social media on fire and provided YouTubers a field day.

What is Oli’s motive in mobilising his whole party to attack Balen, and what is Balen—a lone man with no political experience and political following—doing picking a fight with Oli? How will the duel impact Oli’s party and Balen’s aspirations going forward?

The fight

The Balen-Oli fight began when the metropolitan city started to clear buildings built illegally on municipal land or business advertisements that did not comply with municipal regulations. The city would order the current occupants of the offending buildings or business owners to comply with the law and vacate the premises. In most cases, the occupants would ignore the order. Like in old times, they relied on their political connections to continue to subvert the law. However, that did not work with Balen. He sent municipal forces to demolish the encroachment and non-compliant adverts. The first property subjected to the mayor's action belonged to someone connected to the UML. Soon after the clearance, a Central Committee member of the UML, Mahesh Basnet, called upon his minions to physically harm Balen if he did not “mend his ways”.

Balen’s attempt to clean up Kathmandu from squatters occupying public land, particularly river banks, intensified the conflict. Oli publicly mocked Balen for using bulldozers to demolish plastic shades built by “poor squatters.” Some “squatters” are believed to occupy multistory buildings constructed on public land and own businesses worth millions of rupees. The majority of them are UML voters, “UMLs’ vote bank”, observed a Balen supporter. The squatter problem is not new. All previous governments, including the one led by Oli, recognised it.

The conflict became increasingly acrimonious when Balen opened the basement of Dharahara for car parking. The government objected, arguing that the reconstruction of Dharahara is still incomplete and the car park is unsafe to use. Balen retorted, “Dharahara was inaugurated as a completed project by Prime Minister Oli before the last election. How can it be incomplete?” The inauguration of the work-in-progress was one of Prime Minister Oli’s pre-election charades. The car park is safe and currently in use; the reconstruction continues.

The recent New Road imbroglio added fuel to the fire. Balen started widening the footpath on New Road to comply with the standards set by the Nepal Department of Roads (NDR). A local ward chair, a UML member, objected and complained to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ragubhir Mahaseth, an Oli acolyte. The NDR, which reports to Mahaseth, issued a “stop work” order. Incensed, Balen asked Oli to expeditiously arrange repayment for those who cheated the so-called Giri Bandhu Tea Estate land plotting scandal. Oli’s apparatchiks compared Balen to “a puppy” (a good-for-nothing weakling) and chastised him for maligning “our respected Chairman”. Oli himself has described Balen as a “bubble” which will fizzle out in no time.

The fighters

Oli is old, witty, foxy, prickly, intolerant of criticism and, like all other politicians, corrupt in the public eye. As enunciated during his premiership, his vision of economic development includes building view towers, providing Kathmandu households with piped gas within six months, and building facilities for maritime trade—the latter two unachievable pipe dreams or political ploys.

Balen is young, angry, ambitious, audacious, brash, bold, impulsive, focussed and untainted by corruption. His vision for Kathmandu is to make it a clean, functioning, beautiful heritage city. In about two years since he became mayor, Kathmandu has become relatively cleaner and greener. Its roads are rid of perpetual potholes; its sidewalks are walkable; teaching standards in public schools have improved; private schools who were short-changing on paying taxes have been forced to pay their share; emergency ambulance service has become more dependable, and so on. All of the above, despite a lack of support from political parties and the government. Parties do not support him because his success will spotlight their past failures.

Despite the odds, his accomplishments have made him hugely popular throughout the country. “If we have ten leaders like Balen, we can change the country,” an exuberant Kathmandu taxi driver told me. Even the international press has taken note of Balen’s leadership. The New York Times published a story on Balen last year. He was named one of the 100 upcoming leaders in 2023 by the internationally known Time Magazine, published in the US.

Balen’s public support is so visceral that he gets away even with outrageous comments like “burning Singha Durbar’, Nepal’s central secretariat, the office of Nepal’s Ministries, and irrelevant dragging of Oli into the “Giri Bandhu Tea Estate” scandal, and other similar outbursts.

Although the overwhelming support for such comments on social media is surprising, it is indicative of the intensity of public dislike of established politicians.

The future

Balen knows that he owes his popularity as much to his performance as his refusal to bow down to political pressure and to stay clean from corruption scandals. In the two years since he assumed office, he has given confidence to the city dwellers that with exemplary leadership, the city and the country can be changed. His future depends on whether he can continue to ignore political pressure and demonstrate his perseverance, will, guts and vision to turn chaotic Kathmandu into a livable metropolis.

As for Oli, UML lost the last election in Kathmandu because its mayor, a UML member, was a dismal failure. The confrontation with Balen for political upmanship and ego inflation will unlikely win Kathmandu for him. Cooperation may work better than confrontation.